Memphis Hispanic groups denounce State Rep. Curry Todd's remarks

Madeleine Taylor, executive director of the Memphis branch of the NAACP, joins Hispanic groups and their supporters in front of state Rep. Curry Todd's home Thursday to protest Todd's remark about illegal immigrants.

Curry Todd

Representatives of Memphis Hispanic groups and their supporters stood in front of State Rep. Curry Todd's house in Collierville on Thursday afternoon to denounce his comparison of illegal immigrants to breeding rats.

"People, uneducated people, will make those comments. What's scary is when our leaders make those comments," said Mauricio Calvo, head of the advocacy group Latino Memphis.

"It's about believing that children of immigrants are actually less than human," said Patricio Gonzalez, of the group Youth for Youth. He compared the comment to past demonization of Italian immigrants in the U.S. and alluded to events in Nazi Germany.

About 10 people, including representatives of the NAACP and the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, attended the event.

Efforts to reach Todd by phone Thursday were unsuccessful, and no one answered the door at his two-story house.

During the day, Todd had received both support and criticism for his remarks.

Todd, a Republican with a law enforcement background who was elected to the legislature in 1998, asked in a committee hearing earlier this week whether the government-funded CoverKids health insurance program checked immigration status.

An official told him that the government didn't check in cases of prenatal care because any child born in the U.S. is a citizen.

Todd said that means the immigrants can "go out there like rats and multiply," The Associated Press reported.

Todd later told news reporters he should have used the term "anchor babies" instead to refer to the idea that an immigrant would have a baby on U.S. soil to get rights and benefits. Some immigrant advocates also find this phrase offensive.

The news event Thursday took place in the driveway of Todd's home near the Fayette County line.

A garage sale was taking place nearby, and neighborhood children playing a sword-fighting game ran behind the speakers at one point as cameras rolled.

Organizers of the news conference said they had seen the address listed on a website as Todd's local office and didn't realize it was his house until it was too late.

"We didn't want to make this seem like a personal attack," said Gonzalez, who went before the cameras wearing a pink T-shirt with the words "Undocumented | Unafraid" on it.

Gonzalez has publicly said he was brought into the U.S. from Argentina as a child, that his visa has expired and he's here illegally.